Saturday, May 24

A review of Boston Ballet in "Jewels" by Iris Fanger in the Patriot-Ledger.

“Rubies,” perhaps the audience favorite for its bouncy rhythms and playful attitude, was led by Dusty Button as the sexy vision of a Hollywood goddess. At one point, she stood on one toe as she was turned and stretched by four adoring men. The pairing of Misa Kuranaga and Jeffrey Cirio followed in an adorable and flirty but assured pas de deux. Cirio is simply on target as a Balanchine dancer, hitting every note with crisp delivery to match it, complemented by a mischievous air as if to insist, “Watch me.” Kuranaga is every bit his match in teasing and style.

An interview with Myles Thatcher by Mary Ellen Hunt in The San Francisco Chronicle.

At 19, Thatcher set his first ballet, "Timepiece," on students from the Royal Ballet School, the Hamburg Ballet School and the National Ballet School of Cuba, an experience he describes as both fun and terrifying.

"It was the first time anything I had choreographed was shown in front of an audience," he says laughing. "I didn't even speak all the languages they did, but even at that age, communicating with the dancers and seeing what I could get out from everybody was fascinating to me."

The evening opens with excerpts from three vintage King dances. A good idea: There's lots of salvageable material in those works, and King's ballets rarely depend on linear continuity for their success. In a bit from the 1996 "Klang," Beresford, Harvey and the dancer who calls himself Babatunji deliver a widely spaced unison; Wilkes leads a women's parade on pointe. A more turbulent male ensemble and a gorgeous Pharoah Sanders score represent the 2008 "Radius of Convergence."

Karina Gonzalez and Simon Ball gave an articulate interpretation of the somewhat hedonist “Sanguinic” pas de deux, flashy without vulgarity, really edge-of-your-seat thrilling. And if there was ever a corps de ballet member desperately in need of a promotion, it is William Newton, who nearly stole the show with his deeply committed “Phlegmatic” variation. This is always where I feel the ballet accumulates a certain power, and the section needs the right messenger. Newton’s series of side extensions, in particular, were a kind of miracle: elastic, perfectly aligned, and each as beautiful as the one preceding it.

The choreography, like the music, diverges from conventional harmonies—exploring jaggedness, sharpness, off-balance steps, and, at times, a certain sportiness. At the performance I attended, the music was admirably played by pianist Emily Wong and violinist Benjamin Bowman, and the dancers were Paloma Herrera and James Whiteside. Watching them, I wondered whether ABT dancers have been advised that to perform Balanchine ballets, they have to remain neutral and simply execute the movement as musically as possibly. Certainly Herrera and Whiteside look and perform excellently together, despite their differences. Her dancing has a warmth and an amplitude; although she’s never off the beat, she gives the impression of dancing slowly to try to fill out the steps. Whiteside, on the other hand, is very correct in his behavior, almost stern—executing the steps extremely well, but without ease (there’s that word again).

The Black Swan actress had a head start by marrying Benjamin Millepied, a French dance star who is due to take over the Paris Opera Ballet this autumn, and by learning to speak French (Johansson’s fiance, Romain Dauriac, par contre (on the other hand), is a journalist). But Portman has also remained characteristically discreet — a quintessential Parisian quality — about her integration, something Johansson would have done well to emulate.